Wednesday, March 05, 2003

Iran offers peaceful settlement for Iraq "...TEHRAN, Iran, March 4 (UPI) -- Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi Tuesday proposed a new settlement for the Iraqi crisis that would help avoid a looming U.S. war on Baghdad.
Kharrazi, who disclosed the proposal in a speech at the 13th Persian Gulf Conference in Tehran, called for "holding a referendum in Iraq and achieving national reconciliation between the government and opponents under the supervision of the United Nations.
"We believe that referendum is the only peaceful solution that could be accepted by the Iraqi government and which could spare the region a war," he was quoted as saying by the official Iranian News Agency, or IRNA.
Referring to U.S. plans for post-war Iraq, Kharrazi said: "We believe that any settlement from outside Iraq could not appoint a future government for this country."
He hoped that the Iraqi officials study the Iranian proposal and emphasized that Tehran "does not want to determine the fate of the Iraqi people and does not approve the entry of U.S. forces into the Iraqi territories....."